This seems like a situation where an independent attorney should have been brought on. Why the fuck would the FBI have a role in determining whether or not to prosecute? Isn't that the DOJ's role? A role best delegated to an independent attorney in cases like this?

Is an FBI recommendation a prerequisite to prosecution now? The fact that they found "extremely careless" sounds like factual information upon which charges could be brought (but then again, I don't know the letter of this law).

I'm looking forward to the discussion with State more than this. Because if you read the OIG's report it really sounds like the two options were a secure State Department or a functioning State Department.

I mean I guess we could choose option three where Congress funds the IT needs of the executive branch but that doesn't happen any more.

Hill-dog has suffered all that she'll suffer from this -- her detractors already dislike her and they're not going to persuade anyone else. At this point the GOP can only lose as they appear monomaniacal obsessed by increasingly marginal and tediously technical concerns.

What idiots. Dude gift wraps and uses a nice little bow a thirty minute long presentation of soundbites they could use again Clinton, and instead of doing that, they are attacking his credibility and integrity.

Hill-dog has suffered all that she'll suffer from this -- her detractors already dislike her and they're not going to persuade anyone else. At this point the GOP can only lose as they appear monomaniacal obsessed by increasingly marginal and tediously technical concerns.

This whole scandal is basically a Rorschach scandal - people will see in it what they want to see. Republicans will see bribes or conspiracies benefiting Clinton. Democrats are going to see it as a stupid mistake that doesn't rise to the level of criminality.

Anyone already voting for Clinton will still vote for Clinton. Anyone not voting for Clinton will still not vote for her.

I'm looking forward to the discussion with State more than this. Because if you read the OIG's report it really sounds like the two options were a secure State Department or a functioning State Department.

I mean I guess we could choose option three where Congress funds the IT needs of the executive branch but that doesn't happen any more.

Great Point often missed by the public who won't read the OIG report.

But why would congress fully fund the opposition party's executive branch be doing something besides pissing in the well. /s

The Department of Homeland Security complained that Chaffetz illegally disclosed sensitive security information to the press when he was chair of the House Transportation committee. Other notorious Clinton hunter, Darrel Issa, put several people's lives in danger when he release State Department documents to the public that compromised the identities of several Libyans working for the US government(in an attempt to embarrass Clinton). Before that he published information from a sealed wiretap warrant application into the Congressional record.

The decision not to prosecute was expected by anyone neutral to the politics. Proving criminal intent is a very high bar to meet. And without actual harm done the case became even more difficult who understands the politics.

Sub this for the strike: Proving criminal intent was never necessary considering the standard here should be gross negligence, and even though actual harm was done when her server according to experts was almost certainly hacked, her not being indicted is about what anybody who has been paying attention to the bishops of the democratic party circling her and anointing her while chanting "All really do like her. None have any issues with trusting her...

This whole scandal is basically a Rorschach scandal - people will see in it what they want to see. Republicans will see bribes or conspiracies benefiting Clinton. Democrats are going to see it as a stupid mistake that doesn't rise to the level of criminality.

TBH, I see it as a case of shitty IT policy not serving the users needs, which was responded to by an equally shitty violation of said IT policy. Nobody was doing their damn job.

But, and this is the settled "fact" of the situation, none of that was criminal. But I always look at things from the de facto side, and not the de jure nitpick. If you want to argue points of law, go ahead. I'll award you the title of "Technically Correct". But she's not going to trial, nevermind jail. There will be no sanction. And that, to me, is the better definition of what is actually legal and what isn't.

Gowdy just made a very compelling case for intent based upon the false statements that Hillary Clinton gave to both Congress and the public. Unfortunately I don't think that the FBI investigation would have considered that type of evidence in their review....it only would have come out in court.

The Department of Homeland Security complained that Chaffetz illegally disclosed sensitive security information to the press when he was chair of the House Transportation committee. Other notorious Clinton hunter, Darrel Issa, put several people's lives in danger when he release State Department documents to the public that compromised the identities of several Libyans working for the US government(in an attempt to embarrass Clinton). Before that he published information from a sealed wiretap warrant application into the Congressional record.

Hang them all. We need their seats for people with actual integrity anyway. I'm sure that they have funneled enough money to the prison complex where there is room for cells for them right next to Clinton's.

The Republicans have known for 8 years that Clinton was likely to be the Democratic candidate in 2016. They have been working very hard to demonize her at every possible opportunity. They will continue to do this until the day of the election.

Of course they are frustrated that all that hard work isn't paying the dividends they wanted and expected.

What idiots. Dude gift wraps and uses a nice little bow a thirty minute long presentation of soundbites they could use again Clinton, and instead of doing that, they are attacking his credibility and integrity.

As I recall, the most recent Select Committee report on Benghazi was the 8th Congressional investigation into Benghazi. Since the Clinton Email scandal arose from the Benghazi investigation, this would make it the 9th.

Politics politics politics... There is an interesting issue here between IT being unwilling/underfunded to provide tools to those they serve, and the way people end up working around IT.

Personally, since I'm just trying to get my job done, I get really incensed when IT pushes back for weeks on, for example, letting a vendor's emails through an overly aggressive and ineffective server-based email scanner. But then I don't have to deal with the tools that they have to deal with; if I was in charge it would be an all open source stack instead of expensive proprietary back ends that don't function well and can't be fixed. But then perhaps there's a reason I'm not in charge...

The Republicans have known for 8 years that Clinton was likely to be the Democratic candidate in 2016. They have been working very hard to demonize her at every possible opportunity. They will continue to do this until the day of the election.

Of course they are frustrated that all that hard work isn't paying the dividends they wanted and expected.

Yes, because she is such a nice person at heart... just misunderstood really.

Hillary Clinton did the emails, and my decision as head of fbi is that Hillary Clinton is now sent into space on account of the emails. If she didn't want to go to space she could have not done the emails, but she did the emails and now she has to go to space.

The thing is, as crazy as it sounds, you are NOT really legally bound (as a civilian government employee) to "safeguard classified information," stop spillage, leakage, or otherwise, though doing so is policy, and failure to follow that policy is grounds to be fired or lose clearance.

It IS illegal to remove classified information from classified space and distribute it (regardless of intent) such as taking a document off SIPR and emailing it. In those instances, intent and motivation dictate the severity of the crime.

It is *generally* NOT illegal to refer to classified information outside of classified space, such as referencing a program or codename, but it IS against policy (and failure to follow policy is grounds to be fired or lose clearance). For it to be illegal, the government would have to argue that your doing so amounted to espionage.

It's summed up pretty nicely here: "A number of laws govern classified information, but most are not "laws" in the sense that they were duly reviewed by Congress or the Supreme Court; rather, the majority of guidelines in these matters come from executive orders or presidential directives (which are classified), as well as directives from the National Security Council, the director of Central Intelligence, the Department of Defense, and so on. A rare exception to this is CIPA, the Classified Information Act, which came into being through the ordinary channels of legislative procedure most commonly associated with a republican democracy. Even so, it has often been used to protect the "shadow government" of the security and espionage apparatus." http://www.faqs.org/espionage/Ch-Co/Cla ... ation.html

And thats what the FBI is saying. She didn't violate criminal law in their expert opinion, which is what they were asked to determine. She DID violate executive orders, but violation of executive orders (outside of UCMJ circumstances) is not illegal, hence their recommendation to the DOJ to not prosecute despite a strong condemnation of the behavior.

Hilarious (Hillaryious?) Bonus points: The Executive Orders on classification Hillary has most famously violated were written by her husband.

Hillary Clinton did the emails, and my decision as head of fbi is that Hillary Clinton is now sent into space on account of the emails. If she didn't want to go to space she could have not done the emails, but she did the emails and now she has to go to space.

And by the way... These guys further want me to note that Hill will be going up on a SLS booster.

It's funny how angry the GOP is over this. They've had her tried, convicted, and all but publicly executed for years now, but nothing on which to hang her head. They tried so, so hard with Benghazi but it was so much bullshit that it was obvious they weren't "searching for answers" but rather digging for something, anything, to destroy her with.

Much like Obama, her true crime was being a Democrat. A sin that the GOP can never forgive her for. They tried to tear down Obama, but failed utterly, and they've tried to tear down Clinton as well and have also failed so far. Then they failed themselves by letting Trump drag the party and the level of political discourse in this country into the mud.

Maybe people will realize, some day, that the GOP is diseased and its members now put the power of the party, and its ridiculous ideology, well before the good of this country. Their actions over the last 16 years should have made this readily apparent.

Give up already! Can we get back to the important issues facing America like our failing infrastructure. Where are the hearings on that?

Agreed, this seems like smoke and mirrors to push a political agenda (which it obviously is)..

If, after 8 years of using this private server, only 8 e-mail chains were clearly marked as "classified" (and, conveniently, they leave out if SHE sent it, or RECEIVED it, in accounts I've read).. I doubt this has enough grounds to really go to trial.

She didn't disseminate it, use it for personal gain, or use it for profession gain... She essentially left it on a desk in an insecure room.

THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME... 1 case a year is hardly noteworthy.

I told everyone I knew that her e-mail doubtlessly has classified material... I worked in Government contracting in an area very close to what she would deal with -- stuff that's very, very, high level, non-specific, mostly future-aimed items.

I was part of the tech team managing the documents and database. Then, a new government paper pusher comes in and "retroactively classified" material (as it turned out 85% of the cases were for Clinton's e-mail)... We even had cases were we simply were not notified about a document "becoming classified" and the contract admin getting heated up -- even though he never told us (as the contractors) that the document classification rules he made up changed! In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone changed their "subjection" based on the fact she had it in her mailbox.

But in the end, this isn't something that uncommon in our system. Our IT structure (in a country-wide, technology-wide, theory standpoint) simply isn't designed to assist in finding documents/emails/drafts/database objects that "contain classified material"... We couldn't do this if we dumped a billion dollars into it -- classification rules are too generic at the high level... Anyone who runs those "SSN" or "Credit card" scanners on their on computer know trying to apply this same concept to a gigantic network if computers, servers, databases, documents, etc would be filled with so many false positives it would be impossible to deal with... "Find any reference to "Turtle Beach" anywhere in our system! That project name alone is classified! We must have no references to it!"

Finally, I should say, I believe Hilary should be penalized for her actions, she clearly violated policy. However, I disagree that she should be treated like a treasonous war criminal seeking the destruction of our country for personal gain. I've not heard of anyone ever being jailed (or even tried) for having a document clearly visible to an unauthorized party whom walked into the room.

Yes, I know it's different, being on a server, but that's a different matter entirely, which few facts have been brought up about. They say it was private, but then there's government IT staff managing it? If it was anyone else, the IT staff would be the ones on the spotlight for failing to scrub the server of sensitive data.